The Occasional Blogger

18

Nov

The Occasional Blogger

Submitted by Marcel Gagne

Let's start with an up front confession. I pretty much suck at this blogging thing since I can't seem to find the discipline to update this thing on anything resembling a regular basis. In fact, the only reason I'm updating my blog today is that this has been an amazingly busy week with tons happening and I feel like I have to get some of it down. Hmm . . . maybe I should call my blog "MOB" (Marcel's Occasional Blog). On the other hand, I do have an excuse which is that I write constantly. I'm currently working on two new books and I write another four magazine columns each month. My 16 month old son, Sebastian, has also been getting into the nasty habit of waking up some time after 1:00 AM and staying up for an hour or two so I suppose you could add sleep-deprived (shell-shocked?) to my list of excuses. But, as I so often do, I digress. On to the details of this week.

Tuesday was a Call for Help day. I went up to the studio and taped two new episodes (241 and 242, they tell me). The first segment covered games that poke fun at Microsoft and their security record. The second was all about IM (instant messaging) clients. As usual, it was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to next month's episodes. That evening, I was the featured guest on the Computer Outlook radio show where we talked about my new book and Linux desktop applications in general. It was a good show and several WFTL-LUG members joined me in the Computer Outlook chat room. If you missed the show, you can listen to the podcast for that particular episode right here.

I spent most of Wednesday working on my new "Moving to Ubuntu" book. Wednesday night started out somewhat sombre. My wife, Sally, and I, went to a funeral home in downtown Weston (one of the cities that make up the amalgamated Toronto). This was for one of Sally's relatives, Eva Bogner, who died at 95. After the visitation, we raced home so that I could be on time for my 10:00 PM appearance on the Computer America radio show where I am now the official Linux guy (every third Wednesday or the month).

It was a good show and I had a good time -- I always try to have a good time -- but I question whether I was totally on. I want to spend some time talking about that particular show but I'm going to leave it for later today (this being Friday) since there's a fair bit to be said about some of the discussion that took place. In the meantime, a podcast of that particular show is available right here.

Thursday, I was back to working on my new book, feeling guilty about not updating this thing, which is why you've got something to read here today. Anyhow, lots to do and no one to crack the whip but me (and eventually, my editor, I suppose).